Miley Cyrus @ VMAs 2013

[alan nagsworth]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgSQSQ6D16o

Inhuman.

I really don't care about most pop music this days - it flies right past me and I just let it be - but this is something else. This isn't an acceptable performance by any standard ever. If you cloned Miley Cyrus and took her out of the tube a couple of months early so her fingernails weren't fully developed yet and she had lumpy gums where her teeth should be, and you trained her how to stick her tongue out and move her limbs vaguely in sync with a 4/4 beat, you'd probably get a better performance than this.

The people who gave this girl her fame absolutely knew that she was cute and she'd grow into an "attractive" young woman and that losers the whole world over would be grasping wildly all over the internet for upskirt shots and nipple slips, yearning desperately to ejaculate all over her face, in most cases not even waiting for her to reach maturity. This is the direst result of that initial idea. A hideous chimera of despicable marketing techniques. This is what you wanted you fucking horrible people. Enjoy.

[Utter Shit]

Top slosher.

[Thursday]

What I don't understand is why was this 20 year old even allowed outside without her father or husband accompanying her? Doesn't she realize she has to maintain the image she had when she was 13 years old forever?

[Petey Pate]

This is one of those events that future historians could use to represent some kind of turning point or exemplification of popular culture's descent into total lack of artistry.

[Jim_MacLaine]

She should have gone to the loo before she started. Silly girl.

[QtheRaider]

Are people born with teeth?

[alan nagsworth]

Shut up.

[Nowhere Man]

Edit: Pointless comment that makes me sound like an old man

[Thursday]

I'm just worried that this performance will give young people the impression that sex is "okay" and something that women can enjoy.

[Nowhere Man]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UUD3zyu7Ek

[CaledonianGonzo]

This is absolutely indicative of.....well.....nothing, really.

[Artemis]

Robin Thicke? More like rubbin' thick.

[Retinend]

Is "twerk" what americans call "gurning"?

Really bad performances on both sides in the video. Thicke is already getting bored with that song and is trying to throw some life into it, playing with the vocal melody, but it seems he hasn't practiced it enough. Cyrus barely stays in tune for her own bloody song, but when she has to seamlessly medley into Blurred Lines she falls completely off the wagon. Her shakiness makes her supposedly saucy body contact and gyrating not just a turn-off but actually a bit unsavory. Barely legal; handed an image she's clearly unready to adopt; handed a wardrobe that's inelegant and dis-empowering; given a song to sing that she has no affinity with; told to make very specific gestures and expressions... it's all a bit porny. Especially with all the desperate outward enthusiasm stuck at 10, despite the virtual apathy that surrounds it. Underneath it, none of the crowd seems delighted by the theatrics; the papers aren't actually shocked by the fact that she sort of looks like a naked boy if you squint; and neither Thicke nor Cyrus looks like they're actually into the pairing.

[vrailaine]

I knew most popular music of the last couple of years is pretty bad but if that indicates what the state of it is at the moment, god help us.

"Popular music" is doing fine.

[alan nagsworth]

I've got a feminist friend going off at me on Facebook for supposedly condemning Cyrus but not Thicke for their overt sexuality. Don't think she gets the point to be honest.

Drake gets it though:

[imghttp://i.imgur.com/f2SyM8U.png[/img]

[Ja'moke]

You see by this point I think Miley Cyrus (and/or her management) is clearly just trolling for the laughs. She knows this kind of shit gets people all het up and is now taking it to the extreme.

[Retinend]

I've got a feminist friend going off at me on Facebook for supposedly condemning Cyrus but not Thicke for their overt sexuality. Don't think she gets the point to be honest.

If Thicke was dry humping teddy bears and poking foam fingers in groins then I'd be equally bored. It's just shit. Serious, decline-of-western-civilization shit. It's a mockery of sexiness, as is the Blurred Lines video.

[Retinend]

You see by this point I think Miley Cyrus (and/or her management) is clearly just trolling for the laughs. She knows this kind of shit gets people all het up and is now taking it to the extreme.

She's a dupe popstar. She's making her money in the now with cheap stunts that her management tell her to do, rather than building musical career based on good songs. She's not "trolling", you bonehead. She's being given a risky, all or nothing makeover from one market demographic to another. It worked with Justin Timberlake but most audiences reject the transplant.

[Noodle Lizard]

All those people who said it was "obscene" and accusing her of being a bad role model or paedophile or whatever can just fuck right off.

That being said, it was fucking ghastly.  Just in terms of a terrible performance.  And piss-your-pants funny, too.  It was like watching a drunk middle-aged divorcée at a party trying to be sultry in front of her ex-husband to make him jealous, only trapped in the body of a 20-year-old teen idol.

The best bit is when that pinstripe robot comes out and does some of the feeblest singing I've ever heard while Miley rubs his cock with her arse.  Just awful.

[Noodle Lizard]

A few people on my Facebook are taking the high road by saying "Why is anyone talking about Miley Cyrus?  There are more important things to worry about, there are dead children in somewhere."  But these are the same people who rush to Facebook when an old lady farts next to them on a train, and seem to never think about anything "political", so I don't really know what their point is.

[clingfilm portent]

If Thicke was dry humping teddy bears and poking foam fingers in groins then I'd be equally bored. It's just shit. Serious, decline-of-western-civilization shit. It's a mockery of sexiness, as is the Blurred Lines video.

Basically, yes. I'm not expecting to find this stuff appealing either... I just think the record companies, performers and fans of this stuff are all on different pages. There's something so cynical and nasty about this new wave of pop music. It's not just saying 'have a good time', its also saying 'be an obnoxious half wit'. To Thursday upthread, its not about being prudish, its about being able to see this shit for what it is. There's no pretense of this being art any more.

All those people who said it was "obscene" and accusing her of being a bad role model or paedophile or whatever can just fuck right off.

It is obscene though, for the reasons you went on to mention, and because millions of people (in theory) have come to see a celebration of an artform (well two) being debased. And its working.

[Thursday]

She's a dupe popstar. She's making her money in the now with cheap stunts that her management tell her to do, rather than building musical career based on good songs. She's not "trolling", you bonehead. She's being given a risky, all or nothing makeover from one market demographic to another. It worked with Justin Timberlake but most audiences reject the transplant.

I get the sense she's much more self-aware and complicit in this than say Britney Spears was though. I remember when she was doing this sort of thing and people were complaining about how terrible it was, but it was fine when Madonna was doing it.

[Noodle Lizard]

It is obscene though, for the reasons you went on to mention, and because millions of people (in theory) have come to see a celebration of an artform (well two) being debased. And its working.

You know I meant "obscene" in the "sexually evil" way.  Like the way some people are describing it.  It wasn't, it was just shit.  I don't think it's any real milestone in the degeneration of pop music or anything, it's just funny.

In fact I think the VMAs tend to orchestrate at least one of these "terrible performances" every year.  Wasn't it Nicki Minaj last year?  It gets publicity.

[Retinend]

Is it getting publicity for being shit? That would be a beacon of hope. All I've seen is a determination to sound outraged.

[Sexton Brackets Drugbust]

She should have her tongue surgically altered to exactly resemble a throbbing cock. That'd get her some attention.

[Tiny Poster]

What do the kids think about this?

[Noodle Lizard]

Where are all the GIFs?  There's some great potential in there.

[Ja'moke]

I get the sense she's much more self-aware and complicit in this than say Britney Spears was though. I remember when she was doing this sort of thing and people were complaining about how terrible it was, but it was fine when Madonna was doing it.

Exactly, Miley Cyrus doesn't seem like some mindless zombie that has been told to throw on a school uniform and dance around a high school gym. Like you say, she seems a lot more self-aware. The whole thing is not meant to be taken seriously, is it? It's the VMAs for christ's sake. Her song was already at number one before she did any of this, the entire performance was tongue in cheek (or tongue out of cheek maybe), stupid MTV fuckery to get people het up.

[Sexton Brackets Drugbust]

Exactly, Miley Cyrus doesn't seem like some mindless zombie that has been told to throw on a school uniform and dance around a high school gym.

No, she's been told to throw on some plastic pants, stick her tongue out and rub her arse against a Simon Cowell lookalike dressed as Beetlejuice. It's very different.

[Morrison Lard]

*shudder*